I suspect many tools--free and otherwise--use the same API. This includes the VMware vSphere Client (aka Virtual Infrastructure Client) and their PowerShell-based PowerCLI. Probably others. Perhaps he's already approved the usage of some other tool and you can piggyback on that?

Do you think he's looking for some kind of "VMware partner" kind of approval? He's welcome to pay for that on our behalf :)

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well, it's all done via WMI queries anyway, which is totally what it's designed for. This behavior can be duplicated and demonstrated via the WMI console. Just open it up, query a few machine items, then tell him "look, now if we could AUTOMATE this process, and collect it into some sort of database for our own ad hoc use, wouldn't that be wonderfully useful?"

If he still doesn't go for it, then he's either a pinhead (P.H.B.?) with no concept of internal system workings, or just completely not willing to allow any external connections to your shiny vSphere servers. In that case, move on and forget it.

I suspect many tools--free and otherwise--use the same API. This includes the VMware vSphere Client (aka Virtual Infrastructure Client) and their PowerShell-based PowerCLI. Probably others. Perhaps he's already approved the usage of some other tool and you can piggyback on that?

Do you think he's looking for some kind of "VMware partner" kind of approval? He's welcome to pay for that on our behalf :)

well, it's all done via WMI queries anyway, which is totally what it's designed for. This behavior can be duplicated and demonstrated via the WMI console. Just open it up, query a few machine items, then tell him "look, now if we could AUTOMATE this process, and collect it into some sort of database for our own ad hoc use, wouldn't that be wonderfully useful?"

Like I said, we're using a different mechanism than WMI, but if you think this approach would work, you could do something similar.

Notice near the bottom right hand corner of the ESX web server's home page (before you log in) you will see a link titled "Browse objects managed by this host"? If you click this and log in using the read only account you can browse a bunch of management data in table format. Navigate these links in order to see the hardware configuration of a particular VM:

well, it's all done via WMI queries anyway, which is totally what it's designed for. This behavior can be duplicated and demonstrated via the WMI console. Just open it up, query a few machine items, then tell him "look, now if we could AUTOMATE this process, and collect it into some sort of database for our own ad hoc use, wouldn't that be wonderfully useful?"

Like I said, we're using a different mechanism than WMI, but if you think this approach would work, you could do something similar.

Notice near the bottom right hand corner of the ESX web server's home page (before you log in) you will see a link titled "Browse objects managed by this host"? If you click this and log in using the read only account you can browse a bunch of management data in table format. Navigate these links in order to see the hardware configuration of a particular VM:

content

ha-folder-root

ha-datacenter

ha-folder-vm

choose any VM by number in the row labeled "childEntity"

summary

config

You can lose yourself navigating all the links in there. Good luck!

Ahh, good to know. We aren't using vSphere servers here at the moment, so I forgot all about SW collecting all the stats for VM's, etc. Haha, thanks for setting that record straight. :)

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